It is World Aids Day today and in the Pacific much of the focus is on Papua New Guinea where an estimated 150 thousand people have the disease.
The HIV/AIDS programme manager for Save the Children in PNG, Peter Raynes, says the country faces real challenges in fighting the disease, not least the rapidly growing population, widespread poverty and difficulties in communication.
But he says there are signs that efforts to combat the disease are having an impact.
"There are a lot of partners in the national response who are having an impact and the approaches to the epidemic are becoming more sophisticated and are learning from international best practice. It is really an ongoing challenge because some of the issues, if you like, feeding the epidemic are quite profound issues that are not easy to get on top of."
